Quick Takes

New signs of the economic difficulties facing all kinds of colleges: Administrators and staff members at John Carroll University are being required to take two weeks of unpaid leave, while faculty members are being asked to vote on a proposal to cut their salaries, The Plain Dealer of Cleveland reported. ... The University of Washington is cutting 70 jobs from its fund raising operations, citing a drop of 25 percent in the value of the university's endowment, the Associated Press reported.

A dean of the world of college admissions deans is stepping down. Ted O'Neill, dean of admissions at the University of Chicago for 20 years, plans to move to a teaching and research position at the university. O'Neill has not only won respect for his work at Chicago, but as an outspoken critic of some of the trends in college admissions nationally. On a panel at a College Board meeting in 2005, for example, O'Neill questioned the way technology was making college admissions more efficient, saying that there was a real price for such savings. A good college admissions process "is not like computer dating -- it's like love letters," O'Neill said, drawing applause from his colleagues. He said that current trends in online applications take away students' individuality and result in "generic" and "utterly boring" essays. O'Neill went so far as to predict that current trends in electronic admissions could pave the way for a nationally centralized system of deciding who gets placed in which college -- a development he said would be horrible. "We'll be told what to do and we'll say 'yes -- it's more efficient,' " said O'Neill, who said that a central problem with admissions today was the drive to use technology to make things more efficient. "Yes, technology makes applying easier. I'm not sure it should be easier," he said.

Morris Brown College, a historically black institution fighting for its financial life, lost a classroom building to a foreclosure action on Tuesday, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported. Frederick D. Jordan Hall was sold for $900,000. College leaders vowed to continue their push to revive the college, which is down to about 200 students.

Voters in Davenport, Iowa, on Tuesday rejected a proposal that would pay $20,000 – an award based on the cost of attending a local community college for two years and a state university for two more -- to new high school graduates for use at any college, in- or out-of-state, private or public. Quad Cities Online reported that the measure was supported by only 39 percent of voters. Proponents saw the plan as a way to encourage higher education and attract people to Davenport, but critics questioned whether the city could afford the commitment and whether it would change the decisions people make about where to live.

Sen. Charles Grassley, an Iowa Republican, continues to expand his probe of drug companies' ties to universities that receive federal support for biomedical research. The New York Times reported that Grassley has asked Pfizer to provide details of payments to at least 149 medical school faculty members at Harvard University. Grassley told Pfizer he was "greatly disturbed" by reports that a Pfizer representative took photographs of Harvard medical students at a protest over drug company influence. “I find this troubling as I have documented several instances where pharmaceutical companies have attempted to intimidate academic critics of drugs,” he said in the letter. A Pfizer spokesman said that the company had done nothing wrong, but would cooperate with the senator on his information request.

Eastern Oregon University will end up as the home of a play banned at a local high school -- but administrators at the university administrators aren't boasting about their involvement. The La Grande Observer reported that the La Grande school district banned the play -- Steve Martin's Picasso at the Lapin Agile -- for "adult content." (That makes the play sound pornographic, but Library Journal described the play this way: "The present work is his first full-length play and has enjoyed commercial success in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago. It depicts an imaginary meeting of Pablo Picasso and Albert Einstein in 1904 Paris, exploring the impact of art and science on our rapidly changing society. A surprise visit by Elvis adds some satiric commentary from a late-20th-century perspective.") Last week, Eastern Oregon officials declined to let the high school's production of the play be produced at the university, saying that the decision of the local school district should be respected. But a professor and the university's College Democrats have stepped in and requested space to let the high school play be performed. And university officials said that they had no choice under Eastern Oregon rules but to grant the request.

Liverpool Hope University has announced a new master's degree program: The Beatles, Popular Music and Society. The university believes that the program is the first Beatles studies master's program in the world. A statement from Mike Brocken, senior lecturer in popular music, said that 'there have been over 8,000 books about the Beatles but there has never been serious academic study and that is what we are going to address." He added that the program marks "a seminal advance in popular music studies" because "for the first time in the UK and possibly the world, a postgraduate taught course is offered to research into the Beatles, the city from which they emerged, the contexts of the 1960s, technology, sound and songwriting and the industries that have set up in their wake to capitalize on tourism in tje city of Liverpool." University officials said that they expect significant interest from American students.